Listening to Music while Driving

Listening to music while driving has an impact on men and women. In a study, female drivers reported "higher levels of perceived driver caution" and to be more aware of the experimental music background. Brodsky (2015), the author, notes that: "However, the most important difference between the genders relates to driving deficiencies. Namely, male drivers were involved in significantly more events at significantly greater severities in every driving condition". Here some details...



... condition no music:
event frequency: female - 8 (M), male - 12 (M)
event severity: female- 113 (M), male - 190 (M)
... condition preferred music:
event frequency: female - 10 (M), male - 13 (M)
event severity: female 150 (M), male - 216 (M)

This paper draws on a visceral approach to explore the role of sound/music for people who drive cars. We examine the ways in which gendered subjectivities emerge from the pleasures associated with listening to sound/music during short car trips. The first part of the paper reviews the recent literature on ‘feelings for cars’. We highlight why gender is often absent from the literature before offering a conceptual lens drawing on geographical feminist thinking to consider sound/music, feelings, gender and mobility. We draw on driving ethnographies to explore the role of sound/music in how gender is assembled with the flow of connections between bodies, spaces and affects/emotions. Considering the contextual pleasures of listening to sound/music on these trips and emergent gender subjectivities we provide a more nuanced interpretation of why people choose to drive cars. To conclude, we point to the implications for applied research for new context-specific transport and climate change policy.
Waitt, Harada & Duffy (2015)

- Selection of my Cinquecento Music List:

::: Mando Diao: Dance with Somebody: LISTEN/WATCH
::: Starbuck: Moonlight Feels Right: LISTEN/WATCH
::: Gnarls Barkley: Crazy: LISTEN/WATCH
::: Daft Punk: Lose Yourself to Dance: LISTEN/WATCH
::: Elvis: A Little Less Conversation: LISTEN/WATCH
::: The Buggles: Video Killed the Radio Star: LISTEN/WATCH
::: ABBA: Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!: LISTEN/WATCH
::: Boney M: Ma Baker: LISTEN/WATCH
::: Donna Summer: I Feel Love: LISTEN/WATCH
::: KISS: I Was Made For Lovin' You: LISTEN/WATCH
::: Daft Punk: Around the World: LISTEN/WATCH

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- Brodsky, W. (2015). Driving With Music: Cognitive-Behavioural Implications. Farnham & Burlington: Ashgate.
- photograph by Elliott Erwitt (1955) via